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Re: Homer Simpson at the NIH

Chuck:

All publishers of material based on grant-funded research have done this analysis. They are planning for a shift in their operating environment.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hamaker, Charles" <cahamake@uncc.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 6:49 AM
Subject: RE: Homer Simpson at the NIH

Joe, I wonder how much content publishers would forfeit if what you imply below were acted on? Any bio-medical publishers with estimates of how much of what they publish is from NIH funded research?

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph J.
Esposito
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:51 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Homer Simpson at the NIH

The LA Times editorial made me think of The Simpsons Movie. When Bart tells Homer that "this is the worst thing that ever happened to me," Homer's cheerful, paternal reply is, "It's the worst thing that ever happened to you--so far!" Yes, it can get worse ...

Of course taxpayer-funded research results should be made available at no or marginal cost to the citizenry. I'm a citizen, too, and I support this, just as I support publishing or posting requirements for any grant-funded research. (All universities should be doing this, too, by providing the resources to their university presses.) The problem is that this is NOT what the NIH is proposing. The NIH is not funding the apparatus for publishing. It hopes to "borrow" it from the publishing industry, which has its own interests and prerogatives. This is not a moral argument but an economic one. What the NIH lacks is the moral courage to stand up to its economic situation.

In an alternate universe, where the NIH acted thoughtfully and responsibly, the NIH would fund and develop the means to review and publish material based on NIH research. The money for this would come from other areas; it has to come from somewhere. If someone, anyone, developed a way to take advantage of the open access, peer-reviewed material (text-mining? authoring of syntheses?), that's fine.

The problem with the NIH plan is that the catch-and-release publishing it relies on (exclusive publishing rights for 6 or 12 months, open access thereafter) will inexorably undermine the economics of the original publications, even if those rights are temporarily exclusive. Older material has economic value, even if that value is in building Web destination sites that can be used to generate traffic for other revenue-based services. Publishers will factor in the lost value of the older material.

Publishers will naturally (they already are) be thinking of where best to put their capital to work. Over time less money will go into maintaining the current system; smaller publishers, especially small not-for-profit publishers, will suffer most. The overall costs of scholarly communications will rise. The NIH authorized repositories will exist, but be of diminishing value. By analogy, any American taxpayer can go to the IRS site for tax information, but most taxpayers have learned to go elsewhere, to books, other commercial Web sites, and accountants.

To put this simply: the question for a publisher is, Would you rather make 10% working with NIH-sponsored work or 20% working outside the NIH umbrella? The investment will move away from the NIH and the system that the NIH astonishingly thinks will persevere forever will becoming less valuable to everyone.

But as Homer says, the worst is yet to come.

Joe